Audrey Jones' Guide to Pretty Much Everything
by ComedyFan2086
Summary: I'm happy to admit that I didn't so much stumble upon the Wizarding World than be dragged into it, by a particularly long and friendly tentacle which calls itself the Weasley family. This is the story of how I met my posh boyfriend's weird relatives, learnt all about magic, grew a moustache, and gradually became a Weasley... Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

_"Keep up! They're not far behind!"_

 _"They're almost onto us! I'm afraid we're done for..."_

 _"Well run faster, then! It's your fault we're in this mess in the first place!"_

Hi there. My name's Audrey Jones. You might be able to spot me in this little scene. I'm the one running for my life from some angry Londoners, in search of a pub which I've just been told "should" exist around the next corner, and is our only refuge from the people who want to arrest us. And it's only just past lunchtime. Oh, and by "us", I mean me and Arthur Weasley. He's a great man, and wouldn't hurt a fly; but for the records I do have to say that this situation is entirely his fault.

 _"What the hell do you mean, it 'should' exist?!"_

 _"You can't see it! I can get you through though, if you take my hand."_

 _"So you're sure I can get in? Your weird magicky stuff will let me in, right?"_

 _"I've never actually seen it done or tried it. But it should work if we get it exactly right! Just take my hand, and we have to run into that wall over there."_

 _"Yeah! I'm up for that! How could that go wrong in any conceivable way?!"_

 _"Just stay behind me! And shut your eyes!"_

You may not know it, but this had not turned out to be an entirely normal afternoon. Then again, I had agreed to go on a day out with my future father-in-law, as a sort of induction day into my boyfriend's family. A family which, by the way, is so magical and generally extraordinary that a drab old Muggle like me should have had an awesomeness-induced heart attack the second I stepped over the welcome mat. But there you go. And just when I thought I'd finally nailed being an adult.

So, this is the story of how my life went to shit. Enjoy. If you're into that sort of thing, I suppose. In which case... you're a bit weird.

* * *

"I am a wizard," my boyfriend told me calmly, as we ate cereal together on my sofa at nine in the morning on a Sunday. As a sort of punctuation to his statement, he brought out a wooden stick from his pocket and did a tiny puddle of water onto my sofa. With magic, that is. He didn't decide it was a good moment to piss on my belongings.

It was a very nice sofa, by the way. Only thing I really bothered to customize when I moved to that tiny ground-floor flat in Willesden Green. The landlord did all the painting and stuff, but I was truly proud of my sofa. Blankets, throw pillows, discarded towels... it was a bloody work of art. It didn't change the fact that it was as comfortable to sit on as a rock, but I did my best. It was a very pretty rock.

But Percy's hobby, it seems, is telling me very personal things about himself when I'm halfway through a mouthful of something extremely staining, causing me to spit it out and ruin my things.

To his credit, he looked suitably alarmed as I simultaneously tried to squeeze milk out of one of the towels, and also choked on a stray Frostie that had gotten stuck in my throat.

"Great - great -" I croaked, between ladylike retches. "I'm here - for you - if you need - support-!" Percy gave me a hearty thump on the back, and I breathed. "Yeah, so, um. That's good. Great, even. I'm behind you all the way - supportive partner and all that."

"Thank you. Erm..." He shifted uncomfortably, having not planned any further. So far I was not providing the general hysteria and torch-brandishing that he'd been expecting. He eventually decided to ask, "Do you have any queries? About... us?"

I thought up about a million at once. They filled my mind, vying for attention. Did he have a staff like Nanny McPhee? Are there magical STDs? If he bit me, would I become magic too? Was there a specific place he'd have to bite me for it to work? (If it was the bum, I wasn't sure it'd be worth it.) Despairing of my own brain, I picked the most sensible thought I could find at short notice, and decided it'd have to do.

"Why now?"

"What do you mean, why now?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled you told me, but we've only been dating for three months, and you moved in just two days ago. Most people would wait longer before telling someone something this massive." I'd also expect something a bit... posier. I took a moment to imagine Percy standing on a windy clifftop at midnight, full moon ablaze in silver, turning his face towards it dramatically as he explained why I couldn't be with him. "I have a terrible curse, Audrey my love... A terrible curse... I can breathe fire out of my arse at will and ride dragons."

...No, maybe not. Romantic as that seemed, it was never really Percy's style.

"It's because of my dad coming over today. You know he said he was... interested in your work?"

"He seemed very keen." Understatement of the century. The man wouldn't take no for an answer on the phone when asking for an address, not even from Percy, and was obsessed with my kettle for some reason.

"Yes. That's because... well... he hasn't spend much time around Muggles - erm, people without magic, that is. And it occurred to me that he might seem a little... odd, if you didn't know about our background."

"You have your own world, then? Wizards?" Percy gave a peculiar smile - one I was going to become very familiar with over the next few months. I like to call it the "aren't you ordinary people so adorably oblivious to everything" smile.

"And witches, too. It's similar in many respects, but there's no electricity. Or cars. Or... anything that Dad's mad about, really. And I accidentally let slip to him that I'm dating a mechanic, and... you see the problem."

"Ah. What time did we agree again?" I wondered if we had time to construct a moat.

"Ten o'clock, but put it this way. Mum will have had to work hard to restrain him since four in the morning. We're lucky he hasn't tried to break and enter yet." We both fell silent, suddenly stupidly nervous. To what extremes would this man go to in order to get in? I was half expecting him to break through the wall on a rope swing like Tarzan when the doorbell rang.

And rang, and rang.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake..." Percy stood up, and jogged to the door. "Dad, take your finger off the button!"

"Is it working?" A male voice said from the other side.

"Too right it is!" I yelled over the noise. It sounded like a dentist's drill. "Just let him in, Perce." He did so.

The man in the doorway bore a large resemblance to Percy, anyone could see that. He had the glasses, the slightly wonky nose, and hair in a shade of red which I'd never seen before meeting Percy, except in an advert for Wotsits. I'd have assumed it was dye, but why the hell would you want that? His clothes were a lot more... chaotic than Percy's, barely hanging on to the concept of "normal", and reminded me a bit of Colin Baker's Doctor Who.

"Hello!" He waved. "You must be Audrey! I'm Arthur Weasley. Lovely doorbell circuit you have here."

"Um... thank you? It's very loud, isn't it?" Or that's what my eardrums were telling me, at any rate.

"Mm. Much better than a bell pull. Electric, I presume? Fantastic! I hope we'll be able to invent something like that someday-" Mr Weasley clapped a hand to his mouth, looking extremely guilty. Like a balding twelve-year-old who accidentally said a bad word in front of his grandma.

"Cup of tea, Dad?" Percy suggested loudly, steering Arthur over to the sofa.

"Oh yes please, son. Milk, no sugar." I locked the door, then looked behind me to see them having a silent but furious conversation in the adjoining kitchen area. Percy was repeatedly mouthing "she knows already", with a great deal of arm-waving to go with it. Because apparently wizards haven't invented subtlety yet either. I rolled my eyes, and went to tidy up the sofa a bit.

"So, Audrey..." Mr Weasley began, sipping his tea as he sat down, "What do you do? As a job?" Clare had trained me enough in first-time conversations when I was twelve that I could answer more or less instantly.

"A mix of things, really. I am training to be a mechanic, but I've been doing other part-time stuff for rent purposes. I do jobs with the local man in a van sometimes. Lifting, mostly." I kicked myself. Well done, Jones. That'll convince him you're a suitable partner for his son for sure. Why not just come out with it and say "I'm poor and failed most of my GCSEs"?

"A man in a van?" He looked intrigued at the very idea. "Why is he in there? Can he get out?"

I shrugged. "Not always on his own. His back's not what it used to be. Hence the lifting." Percy's dad still looked confused, so I continued. "He does get out from time to time; the van's just to move people's things around. So if people are moving, they'll get a man in a van to drive their stuff there in their van. Or if they want to give someone a really big present. Like, um, a fridge. A birthday fridge." Percy made a very funny cough, which sounded suspiciously like stifled laughter. Traitor, I thought. At least I was bloody _trying._

"Fascinating." Mr Weasley took out a small notebook, and scribbled furiously. "Man in a van... investigate." Back to Clare's Guide to Awkward Silences, then.

"Anyway, Mr Weasley-"

"Please, call me Arthur."

"Arthur, then - are you working? Or are you retired?"

"I work in the Ministry, with Percy," he said proudly, tucking the notebook into a pocket. "Over forty years I've been there now, you know! The Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office - best department in the whole place."

"What sort of thing do you do there?" My general fear of being too eager and generally Arthur Weasley-ish was overruled by my curiosity about the Wizarding World.

"Mostly charms and spells set on Muggle objects to confuse people. Of course, it can be a little more serious. Just last night I had to dissemble a supermarket speaker which Marlump Dedger - you remember him, Percy? - had enchanted to play nothing but "Destiny Makes Two Brooms Collide", by Celestina Warbeck. A nice enough tune, and very catchy, but in the Muggle world that song doesn't exist, so it had to go."

"Of course, some Muggle musician might steal the idea," suggested Percy. "Like what happened with 'Ten Happy Hippogriffs' a few hundred years ago."

"Oh yes. You used to love that song, didn't you? When you were a baby-"

"DAD," he said, ears turning bright red. "Not in front of Audrey, please?" Yeah. Serve you right for laughing at my conversational skills, you bespectacled prick.

"But it's true," Arthur protested. "You used to sing all the time, in your cot. And if you weren't sure how many happy hippogriffs were still content, and weren't trying to rip something to shreds, that was all part of the charm, I think."

Obviously, by this point my mind was beyond blown. Hippogriffs? Percy singing? And there was someone in the world called Marlump Dedger? And I thought _my_ name was bad. I needed to get out. I had to get back to "normal".

"I think I'll go to the cashpoint," I suggested, edging towards the doorway and grabbing my coat. "It's a bank holiday tomorrow, so it's the last chance before Tuesday." Well manoevred, Jones.

"I'll go with you!" Arthur jumped up so quickly that his tea hopped out of the mug and onto the sofa. "Percy, can I? I'm sure it won't take long." He gave his son a pleading look, as if a stranger had just offered him a sweet from a paper bag.

Percy pulled an apologetic face at me, before replying, "Sure. I will prepare some refreshment for when you get back." In Percy's way of speaking, this basically means: "I'll eat the packet of Quavers you bought yesterday while you're gone, and then offer the cheesy crumbs to our guest while looking adorably ashamed of myself so you can't bring yourself to complain". His dad seemed to have come to the same realisation, being equally fluent in Percy-ese.

"Not to worry, son. I have a few... quid... in my pocket" he pronounced uncertainly. "That's enough to buy a box of Coco Pops to share. Anyway, cheerio!" Good grief. I'd thought that Percy only spoke like a character from a PG Wodehouse book because he'd hung around with some odd people at university. But it turns out, I've found, that all witches and wizards seem to talk like that. Maybe it's the schooling.

I reluctantly let myself and my guest out of the house, unaware that my life was going to change... forever!

Too drastic? Okay, so it's not an instant thing, but please bear with me, all of you. Except maybe those of you who are reading this to perve on my partner. Ew. Okay, even you. Although I reserve the right to fight all of you off him with this electric cattle prod. Just be glad I don't let Arthur use it; he'd be thrilled.

Onwards!


	2. Chapter 2

So since watching two people walk to and operate a cashpoint is quite boring, and I don't want you people knowing my PIN number, I'll tell you a little bit about myself.

For personal life, I give myself an A for effort. I was born on the eighth of March 1977, to Isobel Jones of Leeds. I wish I could say my past was more romantic - like my mum died of one of those diseases people only get in novels, or went off in the Tardis or whatever - but in truth I was "repossessed" when I was one, after my mum was deemed unfit to look after a kid. I've taken a peek at the files, and frankly it wasn't an unfounded judgement. And no relatives showed up, so off I went. It's not really upsetting, it's just facts to me. And it gets a whole lot better from there. I wasn't exactly in the workhouse, you know.

For the next nine years I bounced around the West Yorkshire care system happy as larry, eating cheese that had gone off for dares, before I was fostered by Clare Frost. I stayed there from when I was ten to my seventeenth birthday. Clare, if you don't know her, is an absolute legend of a woman, who is tough as nails. If I went to her house and saw her punching a shark, learning French and nursing a baby at the same time, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Because it seems like the sort of thing she _could_ do, and _should_ logically be doing with her time, seeing how she powers through life. The rules of her house are pretty simple: do your best; clear up any messes you make; if the mess is too big to hide or paint over, ask for help.

Anyway, that's the sad awkward backstory over and done with. On to appearance. I'd give myself a C - not bad exactly, but too weird to fulfil the mark scheme. Big nose, pale skin, with freckles up to my ears. My hair's a bit more toned down compared to Percy's in terms of shade. It's a sort of coppery colour. The style, however, is a different story. While Percy's hair is straight and grows pretty much downwards, mine has to be restrained in a ponytail, otherwise it forms a curly vacuum around my face and I can't breathe. Even tied back it barely keeps it together until the back of my head, where it forms a giant, corskrewy mess. I can't cut it short either - I tried, and spent the first year of secondary school looking like a choirboy.

So, that's me. And right now, I'm in a lot of trouble.

* * *

"Oh, come on..." I thumped the cashpoint hopelessly. Of all the days for the stupid thing to swallow my debit card... with a man who was convinced I was the future bearer of his children hovering over me as if I was disarming a World War Two bomb. Perfect.

"Is everything alright?" Arthur asked curiously. "I've never seen it done like this before."

"Yes, everything's fine," I sang unconvincingly. "I just need to go to the bank and check a few things." In reality, I had no idea what was going to happen. Surely I just had to ask for my card back, and they'd find it. Right?

We walked into the bank, which was fairly crowded. I approached the line of desks (there's not much else in a bank, except for the pretty but uncomfortable chairs), where a woman was scribbling behind the glass screen. "Excuse me, I need - hello? I'd like to... um..." She had headphones in. Was that even allowed? Now a man was queuing behind me and giving me puzzled looks. I started to sweat. "I've lost my- "

"Er, Audrey?" It was Arthur again. "I, um, don't want to tell you how to do Muggle things, since you're the expert, but you might want to be a bit bolder. She appears to have plugged herself into some kind of brain device."

"Well, you have a go getting her attention then," I said, in a not at all stroppy fashion.

The older man paused, thinking deeply. Then, almost without warning, he jabbed a finger at me and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"THAT WOMAN'S GOT A GUN! SERVE HER NOW!"

And to give him credit, the woman couldn't take her headphones off fast enough. Unfortunately, she was a bit too terrified to actually serve us. Clearly, she'd need a bit of prompting. Taking advantage of the utter silence in the room, I cleared my throat.

"Can I have my card back, please?" I said, in my best "nice grown-up" voice. "It's stuck in the ATM, you see."

"We... could send it to you," fumbled the woman behind the screen. "Address, please?"

"17A Belmont Gardens," I grabbed hold of Arthur's arm with an iron grip. "That's B-E-L-M-O-N-T, Gardens. Okay, must fly." We ran.

"I think that went well," Arthur said, as I turned left onto the pavement and went into full sprint. "Very efficient customer service in the end."

"What the actual hell?!" I screeched at him. "You told her I had a gun!"

"Well, yes! I thought that was how you performed a banking procedure in the Muggle world. I saw it in a film once. And now I think about it, I'm not completely clear on what a gun actually is."

"That's a bank _robbery_! And guns kill people! How do wizards do it anyway? It can't be that different!"

"We use goblins." Ah. Bit of a culture shock then. "Why exactly are we running, by the way?"

"Because we haven't got too long before the police respond to the panic button she would have pressed when she thought I had a killing machine in my bag. Also, look behind you." He did so. A few people from the bank were hot in persuit, along with some others off the street who presumably just liked a bit of a chase.

"Oh dear. I suppose there's not a chance they aren't chasing _us_?"

"Catch the red-headed bank robbers!" yelled a particularly enthusiastic persuer, just within earshot. "Lock them up!"

"Ah. I suspect they might be talking about us, Audrey."

"Just keep running!"

* * *

So, to recap. We're on the run from people who are convinced that we're bank robbers. Home is a long way to go. Arthur is trying to convince me that the back entrance to a magical pub is between a newsagent and a furniture shop to our left.

 _"So you're sure I can get in? Your weird magicky stuff will let me in, right?_ "

 _"I've never actually seen it done or tried it. But it should work if we get it exactly right. Just take my hand, and we have to run into that wall over there."_

 _"Yeah! I'm up for that! How could that go wrong in any conceivable way?!"_

 _Just stay behind me! And shut your eyes!"_

We crashed through the door to the Leaky Cauldron, the angry yells fading almost immediately. Arthur quickly shut the door behind us, blocking them out for good. Just as well, since I was too busy have my eyeballs popped out my my own overloading brain.

It looked like any quiet pub in a slightly dingy area of London, and in terms of decoration was very much the same. The people, on the other hand, were completely different. At one table, a woman in a weird dress was making her way through a bowl of green macaroni cheese. At another longer communal sort of table, there was a large... bogey-coloured gentleman, communicating with his human companion using sign language between sips from a bucket of tar. The bartender, a middle-aged bald man with an incredibly wrinkled face, looked normal at least. Apart from the fact that he was levitating tankards using his wand, that is.

"Wow..." I leaned against the pillar. "This is easily the nicest pub in London. What's the chances of the entrance being here?" I stumbled and almost toppled over as the pillar leaned away from me, with a squeaky "Oi!".

"Well actually, the main entrance is King Cross Road," said Arthur. "They have back entrances in every borough now that there's... less crime about, but if I opened the door now, we'd come out near King's Cross station." He paused, as I took this in. "Look, Audrey, I'm terrible sorry about all this. I tell you what - I know a junior Obliviator who owes me a favour or two. I can get him on the case, and it'll all work out in the end."

"A what? Seriously, Mr Weasley, it's okay. It's all fine. Well, that's a lie. But- "

"Please let me help. It's the least I can do." I had done the necessary 'no, I couldn't possibly' spiel, so I wasted no time in accepting.

"So this Obliviator bloke will obliviate - or whatever the hell he does - and nobody at the bank will remember me?"

"They'll have a vague recollection, but not nearly enough to press charges. Completely erasing someone is difficult and often unnecessary. I affects records too - I recall you gave them your address."

"Yeah. Stupid thing to do, really." I flinched as the nearby fireplace exploded with green fire. The other people didn't seem to notice.

"So that's one problem solved. If Percy asks where we've been, I suggest we simply say we got sidetracked- "

"Hey, Arthur...?"

"- one of those excellent coffee shops, for example- "

"But Arthur- "

"- and we simply forgot about the bank on the way home. He won't even have to know we were involved with the police."

"Um, I think it might be a little late for that." Arthur frowned, puzzled, and followed my gaze over his shoulder, where my seething boyfriend was standing in the doorway.

"Oh, dear. Audrey?"

"Sorry Arthur, I'm an innocent. After all, I'm just a harmless Muggle. Enjoy the show." And with that I stood back and watched the fireworks.

* * *

Oh, come on. Can't I have a bit of fun? He _did_ give me a criminal record, after all - even if that criminal record only lasted for two hours in the end, since Percy pretty much propelled Arthur to the Ministry with his dragon breath once he got the whole story out of him. So I did get my own back, and we're even now.

And that's the story over with. How did we spend the rest of the day, you ask? Hot chocolate and Maryland cookies, followed by some "Netflix and Chill". Except without the Netflix, if that makes sense, because it wasn't around yet. Such is life with a member of the Weasley clan. We acted like we were finishing off a relaxing Sunday of doing nothing, when in fact we'd been having dinner in a magical pub and sharing a table with a house-trained river troll just two hours earlier. It's an odd feeling, doing normal things when you know there's a whole other world inside the walls, just waiting to get out.

But somehow, normal things weren't normal anymore. Not with the Weasleys around.


End file.
